Mike Langlois's Blog, page 4

Saving Ideas

Sometime, over 40,000 years ago, someone decided to put images of human hands on the cave pictured above.  It turned out to be a good idea.  This painting has given scientists information on life in the Upper Paleolithic, raised questions about the capacity of Neandrathal man to create art, and sparked debate about which species in [...]

Bad Object Rising: How We Learn to Hate Our Educated Selves

Recently I had the opportunity to work with a great set of educators in a daylong seminar.  One of the things I do with teachers when I present is have them play Minecraft.  In this case I started off by giving a general presentation that ended with a story of auto-didactism in an Ethiopian village, [...]

10 Nonviolent Video Games

Sometimes mental health providers, parents and educators get so caught up in the debate about video games and violence that we imagine all video games have violent content.  They don’t. So when I am feeling proactive (like now) I point out that there are dozens of nonviolent video games.  In this case, I’ll give you [...]

Empathy (Re)Training

  Last night I was mining Gold Omber in the asteroid belt near Erindur VI, and I can’t begin to tell you what an accomplishment that was. (This post is not just about spaceships, but about pacifists, Ethiopia and education, so non-gaming educators and therapists keep reading.)  OK, let me tell you why it was [...]

You’re The Reason Building Your Business Is So Hard

Recently I was asked by a student to take some time and talk with her about her career options. She was trying to plan for her career post-graduate school, and struggling some with the vicissitudes of a graduate program in mental health. Such vicissitudes, once you commit to studying in the field of your choice, [...]

Want To Help Stop Youth Cyberbullying? Let Your Kids Raid More.

The above title is misleading.  In fact it is as misleading as the term cyberbullying, which is an umbrella term used from experiences which range drastically.  ”Cyberbullying” has been used to describe the humiliation of LGBT youth via video; the racial hatred of Sikhs on Reddit, the systematic harassment and suicide of a teenage girl by [...]

Alphabet Soup: The Perils & Promise of E-Learning

CMS stands for Content Management System, which Wikipedia defines as  ”a computer program that allows publishing, editing and modifying content as well as maintenance from a central interface.”  Several of the universities I have taught or teach at use a CMS called Blackboard.  It has several iterations; Blackboard Vista, Blackboard 9, etc.  Faculty are encouraged to use Blackboard by many college administrators, but I [...]

What To Do When Your Therapist Turns Into A Kitten

I have been working with patients online for about 6 years, and even now I have some interesting surprises in the work.  Recently I was meeting online with one of my long-term patients for their regular session.  I use my laptop but have a better web camera and monitor hooked up to it.  The bigger [...]

One Bostonian’s Thoughts On Social Media

    How does one begin to carry on with one’s life and work when the tide of history overwhelms a society?  This week I have had numerous conversations with colleagues about the myriad and often conflicting ideas and feelings we have been asked to hold alongside each other.  Initially I had been asked by [...]

Skyrim Family Values

In psychotherapy we have grown to have a narrow definition of what it means to prescribe something.  Most of us think of prescription in terms of medication, however if we take this definition, you’ll see why I often prescribe video games: pre·scribe /priˈskrīb/ Verb (of a medical practitioner) Advise and authorize the use of (a [...]